Book: Moving Millions

Stories from the frontlines of the real immigration battle-between workers of all kinds and global corporate forces that have come to depend on them

The immigration debates taking place in America and Europe are distractions from the real issues. In Moving Millions, veteran news correspondent Jeffrey Kaye looks past fences and green cards to show how businesses, addicted to migrant labor and assisted by governments, are able to use migration to keep people overworked and underpaid. Corporate deals foster and promote migration. Trade rules and subsidies underwritten by wealthy nations undercut foreign producers to the point where cheap produce has put Mexican and African farmers out of business, leaving residents little choice but to migrate. Businesses use migration to keep wages low while offloading social costs onto communities at home and abroad. Kaye shows that debates about this skewed system mask the need for more concerted action to address the underlying problems of inequality and poverty.

Reveals how governments and corporations around the world manipulate migration policies to their benefit. At the same time, developing countries export migrants because it’s easier than fixing domestic problems and because migrant wages sent back home provide a revenue stream

Shows how corporate players have formed strange bedfellow alliances with civil rights groups to advance their mutual causes

Brings a new perspective to the looming debate on comprehensive immigration reform in Washington

Jeffrey Kaye, an immigrant himself, has worked as a correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer since 1984, reporting on immigration, housing, health care, urban politics, and other issues

Drawing on Jeffrey Kaye’s travels to places including Mexico, the U.K., the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, Poland, and Senegal, this book, a healthy alternative to the obsession with migrants’ legal status, exposes the dark side of globalization and the complicity of businesses and governments to benefit from the migration of millions of workers.